shannikins's Xanga

that being said, you should come see this show

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:05:37 GMT

some background information:

1. i am currently running compleat female stage beauty with the SNAP! theatre. in it, i play a meek, sweet little seamstress who is head over heels for a restoration actor who plays all the lady parts in shakespeare's plays. i spend most of my onstage time standing in the background of scenes looking either stricken or smitten, sometimes both.

2. i had a show today (sunday) at six, but i worked at the mall until 3.

3. i have a cold.

i awoke today feeling like total crap--stuffy nose, congestion, headache, sore throat. there was a cough in there that made me think that maybe i had consumption.
"i can not feel this way all day!" i thought. "i have a show to do. people are counting on me!"
but, you know, i was sick. so...balls.
when you are sick, and you need to feel better, you take medicine, right? right. so i sent greg to walgreens to get me both walphed cold and cough and dayquil (in combination, these two medications can give the impression that you are not sick at all, which is exactly what i wanted out of my day). so i took two of each at 11, and felt a little bit better.
i started feeling a little ickier at around two or so, so i took another one of each.
and then, at five, when i was called to the theatre, i took two more of each to make sure i wouldn't cough, sneeze, or sniffle while onstage.

do you see where i'm going with this?

half way through the first act, while onstage, the ten cold pills i took over the course of the day ALL TOOK EFFECT AT THE SAME TIME.

i managed to make it off stage before i started giggling. and then i spent the next forty minutes TRIPPING BALLS. doing set changes, tripping balls. exchanging dialogue and tripping balls. tripping balls, making out with an old gay dude.

most of my offstage time was spent staring at walls, barking laughter, and shredding paper towels. at one point i dropped my bottled water into the garbage and shouted "it's too salty!" and then i ate a piece of cake with my hands.

i think the only thing that really suffered on stage was my dialect, and i don't know if that means i'm just that good an actor or that i am such a bad actor that i can be high as a kite and not have it change my performance that drastically.

i'm sure it was very entertaining for everyone who wasn't me.

interesting.

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:14:50 GMT

i was randomly clicking through my weblog bookmarks and clicked on my own by accident, and realized that it has been six months, to the very DAY, since i last posted anything on xanga.

i'm going to try to come back to xanga, or at least, come back to blogging, because every once and a while there is something that needs to be expressed in more than 140 characters.

but i'm still having trouble navigating the "new" set up over here, so we'll see if this is still a place for me.

cookies you guys!

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:51:06 GMT

i made cookies today and since i'm pretty bored, i decided to post about them.

(i could also probably alleviate this boredom by getting dressed or taking a shower, both of which i need to do before someone calls me saying "we are rehearsing in fifteen minutes!" or "hey shannon it's your dad let's go get lunch!" but no. i'm on the internets. posting about cookies.)

ANYWAY.

cookies.

did you know that it's insanely easy to make cookies? i want cookies all the time. if i can eat a cookie right after dinner it kind of makes my day. and when i don't have cookies (which is usually the case) i sit around bemoaning the fact that i have no cookies and wondering if i should go to the store and buy some. which i never do...or rarely do. then one day i discovered that you can make your OWN cookies. (okay, i already knew that. but i rarely used to make cookies. maybe, MAYBE for a bakesale. maybe. but it just seemed like such a hassle.)

maybe i should say i found a recipe that made just the right amount of cookies in like fifteen minutes. and since i am lazy, it was perfect. i found this recipe like three weeks ago and i've made these cookies like five times since then. three of those times were for other people though so don't think i'm some sort of "vegetable monster" over here (don't even get me started...)

as proof of how often i make these cookies, allow me to show you the state of my pantry items which were, until i found these cookies, FULL. i swear. FULL.

(i think the vanilla makes me saddest, since i recently bought it and it is ACTUAL vanilla. not high quality vanilla, for sure, but i had previously been baking with a very large, very very old, off-brand imitation vanilla flavoring...i.e., blasphemy to real bakers. i also never use butter because i am too poor. everything turns out fine, but i have big plans for using real butter with my stand mixer. but i'm saving myself for marriage.)

today's cookies are not for me, they're for my dad, who's starting chemo today. yes, i know he won't want to eat cookies. but it's the thought that counts! the thought and the smell. these cookies smell really good too.

COOKIES!
(this recipe makes about 12 really huge cookies. this way you have just enough to enjoy for a few days but not so many that you gorge yourself on cookies, or (unthinkable!) have to throw away old stale cookies)

1/2 stick butter, softened*
6 T sugar
6 T brown sugar**
1/4 t salt
1 1/2 t vanilla

mix that well, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add one egg. mix again. then, in a separate bowl (if you follow directions) or right on top of the mixture (if you are like me and you're lazy) mix 1 cup plus 2T of flour with 1/2 t baking soda and mix into the wet ingredients.

then add chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, and/or nuts. the recipe calls for a whole cup but i usually use a heaping half cup and they are still very chocolatey.

then scoop big monster cookies onto a sil-pat lines baking sheet and stick in a 375 oven for 12 minutes. i over cooked these because i was on the internet. so they're extra brown but still pretty good. as is proven by ruffles JUMPING ONTO THE TABLE AND EATING THREE OF THEM. so i don't have a lot of cookies to take to my dad but that's cool. they certainly LOOK homemade, which i've learned with parents is almost more important than how good a thing is...see the Homemade Nativity Crying Scene from Christmas 2002.

*i used margarine because i'm poor and lazy, which makes my cookies spread out a lot more than they ought to. but they still taste good
**this is a weird measurement, i know. but apparently if you double the recipe (which would make the sugar measurements a nice 3/4 c) it doesn't work out so well, so i stick to the spoons)

i might be boring but my mac and cheese is boss

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:55:23 GMT

the quest to cook more is going rather well. i've made dinner in one capacity or another about four times this week. i am also continuing to not use recipes, but that isn't intentional. it's much less about me being a "good cook" and more about me being "too lazy to look it up on the internet" and also "unwilling to go get more ingredients."

at the moment this little experiment is incorporating an unfair amount of goat cheese because i bought waaaaaaaay too much for the acorn squash pizza. if i had more squash i would just make the pizza again. but as it is i made a sort of weird pasta sauce using it and pretty much anything in my fridge with a high fat content. to be fair though, i put broccoli in it. so it was a health food.

i have also been packing greg's lunch. seriously, it's the episodes of mad men saved up on the tivo. it's warping my brain.

however, i did not cook today. i gussied up some leftovers in such a way that it required the oven but i don't think that counts. i was scheming what to make for dinner when ben said he wanted to go out, so we went to heartland barbeque. and, okay, it is like the least fancy establishment around, and it's up here in north o, but it is some of the best barbeque i've ever had. (yeah, texas, i said it. deal.) i highly recommend it. i extra highly recommend it if you have managed to avoid fast food for a while, because that and the pizza i had on friday seemed like treats, like something special that i earned. the pizza was going out with RESPECT people and remounting a tradition of eating pizza greg hates when greg is at work--always fun. and tonight was like, an outing because it was a saturday and we were home and in a good mood.

so often, especially during shows, i have fast food so often it literally makes me sick. and when you have to think, "where am i going to eat?" and you realize there is no where left you haven't eaten that week, it makes you SAD. but when you're at home and you say, what do i want to eat? it's more like an adventure.

i think later i might make brownies, if i can scrape together the last of my butter reserves.

yeah, i know. i'm lame, and i blog about the most boring stuff ever. food, shopping, wedding. blah blah blah. you have a vagina! we get it already! jeeeeez.

domestication is for cows

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:33:59 GMT

tonight i made pioneer woman's crash hot potatoes and a meatloaf made up up Things I Think Should Be In Meatloaf. it was pretty good. i think tomorrow's sandwiches will be phenomenal.

i realize i like, just posted what i made for dinner. but this is part of a bigger point. or rather, a promise i am making to myself that i am backing up with THE INTERNET.

i have discovered in the last few days that i love cooking dinner. i knew i loved to cook and bake, but whenever i did it it was a big ordeal with tons of planning and a night off and high expectations and i only did it REALLY four or so times a month. the rest of the time i'd skimp by with chicken noodle mountain or oven pizza or whatever. and lots and lots of takeout, which is expensive and takes its toll on your soul.

suddenly a light just came on and i'm like, if i cook like every other day, i will have tons of yummy food, and cooking makes me feel so much better about what i eat and i look forward to lunch the next day (because there will always be leftovers, i cook far too much for two people, even if those two people are me and greg) and it just makes me feel really good. it also justifies all the kitchen equiptment i own and my large selection of cookbooks and the GIGANTIC bookmark folder of online recipes i have (if i were to guess, i would guess 500, and that would only to keep myself out of trouble)

unfortunately this realization and lifestyle choice comes at the exact same time that i realize i have one hundred days until i get married and take tons of pictures of myself to display around my house forever. not that i have ever dieted, or really cared, but i would like to appear to have cheekbones in my wedding portraits. and meatloaf sandwiches tend to give me whatever whatever would be the EXACT OPPOSITE of cheekbones.

but, in the past, given the choice between a weight goal and the sweet, sweet comfort of excessive meat and fancy cheeses, the waist usually loses. AND i have discovered that i can eat chips again without discomfort. i realized this by finishing off most of the bag of buffalo style kettle chips.

this could get chubby, friends.

bits and pieces

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:26:23 GMT

that seems to be all you get these days, non-wedding blog, and i'm sorry. sucks to be you, i guess. but if it makes you feel any better, i haven't posted much over there, either. or done anything of use at all, ever. so...sucks to be all of us. BUT A FEW THINGS:

-got my wisdom teeth out! ah, life is better. so much better. although my jaw is still a little hesitant to open very wide, making things like jimmy john's sandwiches painful and hardly worth the effort. also, i have dreams in which i can eat chips...i think it might be safe to eat a chip or two but crackers are giving me problems. also, i keep licking and chewing on the scar tissue, in some ways giving me the look and speech pattern of the joker.

-speaking of, holy shit, right? i can literally talk for hours about the dark knight and what should come next for batman movies. i won't post it here because most of my theories are heavily dependent on spoilers.

however, one spoiler: heath ledger is dead, and that now sucks more than ever.

not that i evaluate human life by level of talent, but i found it hard to miss someone i had never met just because they were famous. now it burns.

-i made dinner yesterday--goat cheese, squash, and arugula pizza and oatmeal cookies. both were made from a recipe that i then wildly differed from because of lacking ingredients or laziness, and it worked out really well! which was totally rad. and now i have cookies.

-i like this necklace, but i won't buy it for fear that it will someday be ironic

i do miss you though, i do.

druuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugs

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:39:56 GMT

so, as i have said, my teeth hurt.
that was kind of an understatement.

in february or so, i woke up in the middle of the night screaming and crying because i had blinding pain on one side of my face. the majority of the hurt was localized to my teeth, but that pain was invading my cheeks, neck, and felt like it was trying to push my eye out from inside the socket.

i went to the dentist. he said i was a teeth grinder and that i should stop that. so i tried to stop grinding my teeth and took about ten ibuprofins a day in an attempt to get through it.

about a week into shakespeare, my mouth filled with blood and i realized a wisdom tooth had broken through in the back. i wish the dentist would've caught that. that would've been cool. i didn't have any time to go in and have those bastards removed, since i was working a sixty to seventy hour work week. i thought, as soon as shakes is over, as soon as shakes is over...
the wisdom tooth broke.
owwwwwwwwwww.
finally shakes was over and i could go in, and, as if the teeth knew that, all hell broke loose in my mouth. i have a "consultation" on monday and will hopefully get them out sometime soon.

but until then, until then, i have PRESCRIPTIVE PAINKILLERS. can i just tell you how awesome they are? i took one (one! not five!) last night with dinner, and on the way home i said,
"Greg, my teeth..."
and he said "i know baby, it's okay..."
and i said, "no...they don't hurt...." for the first time in five months my teeth didn't hurt AT ALL. so i started to cry, i was so happy.

i know drugs don't solve problems but HOLY SHIT DUDE. THIS IS AWESOME.

let's stay in touch

Sat, 31 May 2008 17:51:39 GMT

let's try, anyway, or i'll try not to go five months again in silence. so what is new, that isn't wedding?

um, my teeth hurt? yes, that.

it is possible that i may have made an intern quit today because i told her she was doing something right.
apparently i did not phrase it in the most coddling constructive way possible.

she asked someone "does she hate me?" and then she went to lunch and never came back.

oh honey, if you need to ask, then no, i don't. if i did you would KNOW. oh boy howdy, would you ever know. now come back here and finish the damn veils.

five months smive months

Mon, 26 May 2008 03:48:16 GMT

i live on the wedding blog for right now.

but i suddenly got nostalgic for whatever the other blogs have to offer so i thought, meh.

i think posting here will be like walking into a bar where you used to be a regular but have not been for a very long time. maybe they'll recognize you and give you a nod or even an overly loud "HEY!" but probably they'll just take your cash and hand you your drink and when you start smacking a pack of cigarettes against your palm no one will say "you don't smoke" because nobody knows anything about you anymore.

but that sounds kind of dramatic.

or maybe it's like walking into a bakery at which you used to work and you're wearing a policeman's uniform and they give you big hugs and sit you down to drink tea and tell them all about your life but they accidently feed you peanuts because it's been a while and they forget you're allergic but then you apologize and say you were only pretending to be allergic when you worked there, you're not going to die, you just hate how they get stuck in your teeth.

i think that's it.

oh, and no, i didn't graduate.

tagged and bagged

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:53:27 GMT

i got tagged by ashos with one of those "ten things about me" posts. (her post made me laugh until i cried...you should read it)
i've done these before. so i'm gonna try REALLY hard to do five that NO ONE knows about me. and then i will do five that people that don't live with me don't know about me because the people who live with me know a lot.

FIVE THINGS I HAVE NEVER TOLD ANYONE (probably because they are recent)
1. i usually dream one of two ways: it is either fantastical, psychotropically beautiful and deranged or perfect realism. this is not news. but lately, in the realistic dream world, my dream friends keep on referring to a series of sex dreams that apparently dream shannon has had about a certain friend of mine. real life shannon has never had a sex dream (or even a sex THOUGHT) about said friend, but apparently when dream shannon dreams this guy and her go at it all the time.
when does dream shannon have time for sex dreams, i wonder?

2. whenever i climb the stairs at work, when i get to the top i have the last lines of a christmas carol in my head. and i have to hum them out loud as i am upstairs or i will forget what i am looking for. i googled the lyrics just now and apparently this carol is "good kind wencenlas" even though, had you asked me five minutes ago, i would have SWORN i do not know the words to that song.

3. the other day when i was driving i forgot the name of a friend i had when i went to lincoln. when i remembered later i said the name out loud like five times in a row, i was so pleased with myself. i do this a lot when i'm alone. i say things out loud when i realize them. i'm like jennifer connelly in labyrinth.

4. i just numbered this one "six." apparently i can't count.

5. similar to not being able to count: when i alphebetize things i usually switch "g" and "h." then i fix them before anybody catches this.

FIVE THINGS THAT VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOW:

1. i can identify the worst thought i have ever had (and that's saying something!) but don't worry: i will never tell you what it is.

2. i have taken to saying "shuck" when i am in a situation where it is inappropriate to swear. this is silly because it is very clearly a hybrid of "shit" and "fuck," and is often mistaken for one or the other.

3. i'm probably going to procrastinate my way to not graduating! again!

4. i like simon. i pick him up and give him kisses. i kind of want a kitty of my own.

5. this is a red panda:

not a fact about me but you probably didn't know that, did you?

there are a couple of things i would've posted but even i don't know them yet.

wait, i'm supposed to tag ten people? erm. i don't know! i don't think i have ten friends in the world. post ten things about you and attribute it to me. it's a good way to handle it.